Europe: A History (253 page)
Photo: © RMN.
8. SABINE RAPE.
Les Sabines
(1796–9) by Jean-Louis David. As recounted by Livy and Ovid, one of the favourite tales of early Rome tells how King Romulus organized a festival at the Circus Maximus in order to ensnare the women of the neighbouring Sabine tribe. David’s heroic rendering shows Roman matrons intervening to stop the
bloodshed on a background reminiscent of the Bastille. It earned him the label of‘the Raphael of the Sansculottes’. Louvre.
Photo: © RMN.
9. DEATH OF SIEGFRIED. An episode from the 5th-century Legend of the Nibelungen: Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794–1872):
Hagen ermordet Siegfried (Hagen killing Siegfried)
(1845). Hagen surprised Siegfried drinking at the spring, and pierced his magical protection. Munich was the capital of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, patron of Richard Wagner, who popularized the nationalistic revival of pagan Germanic folklore. Koenigsbau, Munich. See
[NIBELUNG]
.
Photo: AKG, London.
10. ATTILA INVADES ROME,
AD
452. Ulpiano Checa y Sauz (1860–1916),
The Fall of Rome
(1891). Many pictures of this genre, which lionize the barbarian heroes, say as much about the nineteenth-century revolt against classical taste as about ancient history.
Photo: © Hulton Deutsch Collection.
11. EASTERN ORTHODOXY. Christ Pantakrator flanked by the Emperor Constan tine IX Monomachos (r. 1042–55) and the Empress Zoe at the time of the Church Schism (1054): 11th-century mosaic. The Byzantine tradition stressed the union of spiritual and temporal authority. Hagia Sophia, Istanbul.
Photo: Foto Fabbri.
12. WESTERN MONASTICISM. St Benedict and the Abbey of Monte Cassino, founded c.529.11th-century miniature. The first great Western monastery, founded by Europe’s Patron Saint, survived intact until 1944.
Vatican Photographic Archive. Vat. Lat. 1702 Ilr.
13. CONSTANTINE’S DONATION. The medieval legend that the Pope’s temporal powers were donated by the Emperor Constantine I, illustrated in a fresco
(AD
1246). The legend was unmasked as a papal forgery during the Renaissance. San Silvestre Rome.
Photo: Foto Fabbri.
14. THE SLAVONIC LITURGY. Alphonse Mucha,
Zavedenislovanska liturgie
(1910). A late Romantic view of an event in the 9th-century mission of SS Cyril and Methodius to Moravia: the first of Mucha’s series illustrating scenes from Czech history. City Gallery, Prague.
Photo: State Gallery, Prague.
15. CATHOLIC PIETISM. Enguerrand Quarton,
La Pietá de Villeneuve-les-Avignon
(1444–66). An expressive representation of the Virgin Mary’s ‘Lamentation of Christ’ from 15th-century Provence. Louvre.
Photo: © RMN.
16. ST AUGUSTINE.
StAugustin etles patrons de Marchiennes (iith-cent.)
miniature. Bibliothèque Municipale, Douai.
Photo: Photo Giraudon.
17. ST CHARLEMAGNE. A. Dürer,
Karl der Grosse
(1512).
Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg.
18. ST MATTHEW. A full-page illumination on folio 25h of the Lindisfarne Gospels (late 7th century, Northumbria).
British Library, BL Cott. Nero Div. 25V.
19. SS JOHN THE BAPTIST AND JEROME. By Masolino, c.1383. National Gallery, London.
Photo: Bridgeman Art Library.
20. MATKA BOSKA ‘The Mother of God’. (14th-century.) The Black Madonna of Czçstochowa, Poland, an icon of Byzantine origin or possibly a copy ordered by King Wladyslaw Jagietto. See
[MADONNA]
.
Photo: Polish Cultural Institute, London.
21. ST JOHN THE THEOLOGIAN. The dictation of the Gospel to Prokhor (Italo-Cretan School, early 17th century). Crete, which was ruled by Venice until 1669, saw an inimitable blending of Orthodox and Catholic styles. See
[GRECO]
.
Photo: Sotheby’s, London.
22. ST. LUKE—ICON PAINTER. According to Orthodox tradition, the first icon was painted by St Luke, when he drew the Virgin Mary from life. (17th-century icon from the Church of St Luke, Opachka, Pskov, Russia: restored.)
Photo: Church of St Luke, Pskov, Russia.
23. BOGORODICA. The Virgin of Pelagonitissa: a Serbian icon of the Holy Mother and Child (14th-century) from Skopje, Macedonia.
Photo: AKG, London.
24. HOMAGE TO OTTO III. The four lands of Europe—Slavonia, Germany, Gaul, and Italy—offering homage to an Emperor who sought to re-unite East and West. Otto III’s Gospels, Bamberg (c
AD
1000).
Photo: Staatsbibliothek, Marburg.
25. ENGLAND CONQUERED. The Death of King Harold at Hastings,
AD
1066. Detail from the late 11th-century
Tapisserie de la Reine Mathilde
, known in English as the Bayeux Tapestry. The 58 panels of this early example of strip cartoon art relates the Norman version of events, including King Harold’s alleged treachery and Duke William’s consequent claim to the English throne.
Photo: Michael Holford.
26. WENDISH CRUSADE. L. Tuxen,
The Fall ofSvantevit
(1894). The destruction of the pagan idols of the Slavs during the Wendish Crusade (12th century). Such scenes attended the ‘advance of civilization’ in Europe from Caesar’s felling of the druidical grove at Marseilles to the final baptism of the Lithuanians in 1386. Fredericksborg, Copenhagen.
Photo: Fredericksborg, Copenhagen.
27. TRUCE IN THE RECONQUISTA. 12th-century miniature from
El libro de Juegos de Ajedrez
. A Christian and a Moslem warrior play chess. Escorial, Spain.
Photo: Arxui Mas.
28. TRISTAN’S LAST SONG. Miniature (c.1410) from the
Roman de Tristan
. From its origins in 6th-century Cornwall to Wagner’s opera of 1859, the tragic love story of Tristan and Isolde was recounted in numberless versions. See
[TRISTAN]
.
Photo: Austrian Nat. Library, Vienna, MS 2537.
29. IRON PLOUGH. ‘March’ from
Les Tres Riches Heures du Due de Berry
(early 15th-century). The heavy horse-drawn plough was the principal instrument of the medieval ‘Agricultural Revolution’. Musée Condé, Paris. See
[PLOVUM]
.
Photo: Photo Giraudon.
30. SCENT OF THE STAG. ‘Tracking’ from Gaston de Foix,
LeLivre de la Chasse
(late 14th-century). Until recent times, the art of hunting was a mainstay of Europe’s diet and nourishment. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. MS Francais, 616 fol. 57V. See
[CHASSE]
.
Photo: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
31. DANTE IN LOVE. H. Holiday,
Dante andBeatrice
(1883). A popular representation of the moment on the banks of the Arno in Florence which was to inspire Europe’s greatest poem. Beatrice Portinari, who died in 1290, was adopted by Dante as his spir itual guide through Paradise.
Photo: Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, no. 3125.
32. BARTOLOMEA IN A DILEMMA. ‘Dioneo’s Tale’ from Boccaccio’s
Decameron:
15th-century miniature. The neglected wife of a Pisan judge, Bartolomea, goes off on pilgrimage, where she is seduced by the pirate, Paganino da Nare
(left)
. On reflection, however, she chooses to live with the pirate
(right)
.
Photo: Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Paris. Arsenal 5070 fol. 91V.
33. ST FRANCIS BLESSES THE BIRDS. Fresco (1295–1300) by Giotto. The patron saint of animal lovers, St Francis was also a social radical whose devotion to poverty and non-violence challenged many of the reigning assumptions of the medieval world. Church of San Francesco, Assisi.
Photo: AKG, London.
34. KING CASIMIR GREETS THE JEWS. Wojciech Gerson (1831–1901),
Kazimierz Wielki i zydzi
(c.1890). This late Romantic painting celebrates the expansion of Europe’s largest Jewish community at the time of the Black Death, when large num bers of Jews took refuge in Poland from persecution in Germany. Museum Narodowe, Warsaw.
Photo: H. Romanowski, Museum Narodowe, Warsaw.
35. PICARO. Hieronymus Bosch,
The Vagrant
. Rural poverty, vagrancy, and fugitive serfs constituted one of the perennial social ills of late medieval and early modern Europe. See
[PICARO]
.
Photo: Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
36. MARCO POLO. Marco Polo the Venetian sets sail for China from the Grand Canal,
AD
1270. Miniature, c.1400. Europe’s voyages of discovery began long before the age of Columbus.
Photo: Bodleian Library, Oxford. MS Bod. 264 f. 218.
37. WESTERNER AS EASTERNER. Jean-Etienne Liotard,
Portrait de Richard Pococke
(c.1738–9). The British Ambassador to the Sublime Porte painted in Ottoman dress, overlooking the Bosporus.
Photo: © Musée de l’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva.
SECTION 2
(between pages
942–3)
38. VENUS. Lucas Cranach,
Venus restraining Cupid
(1509). Cranach’s full frontal female nude crowned the long process of artistic defiance, initiated by Donatello’s bronze
David
(c.1434), which broke the medieval taboo against nudity, thereby reviv ing interest in the human body. Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.
Photo: Bridgeman Art Library.
39. PERSPECTIVE. Piero della Francesca,
The Flagellation
or
The Dream of St Jerome
(c.1460). A profoundly enigmatic work by an artist experimenting both with technical innovations and visual symbolism. Gallería Nazionale, Urbino. See
[FLAGELLATIO]
.
Photo: Bridgeman Art Library.
40. ALLEGORY. Antoine Caron (1521–99),
L’Empéreur Auguste et la Sibylle de Tibur
(c.1575). In an attempt to reconcile the paganism of the Ancient World with Christianity, Caron portrays the Roman Sibyl prophesying to the Emperor Augustus about the Immaculate Conception and the Birth of Christ. Louvre. From the court of Henri III.
Photo: Photo Giraudon.
41. COLUMBUS LANDS AT SAN DOMINGO, 1493. F. Kemmelmeyer,
The First Landing of Christopher Columbus
(1800–5). An evocation of a moment now described not as a ‘discovery’ but as an ‘encounter’.
Photo: National Gallery of Art, Washington.
42. LUTHER ENTERS WORMS, 1521. R. Siegard,
Die Rede Martin Luthers von dem Reichstag in Worms
. A reconstruction of the scene on the day which was to split Catholic Europe, and launch the Reformation.
Photo: Stadtarchiv, Worms.
43. DREAM OF EMPIRE. El Greco,
The Adoration of the Name of Jesus
(c.1578): an autographed version of a larger picture in the Escorial, Spain, known as
The Dream of Philip II
. The kneeling figures of the King of Spain, the Pope, and the Doge of Venice embody the ultra-Catholic mission of the Holy League whose forces defeated the Turks at Lepanto in 1571, thereby saving Europe from the jaws of Hell.
Photo: National Gallery, London.
44. VISION OF PAST GLORY. J. Matejko (1838–93),
Bathory at Pskov
(1872). A nos talgic Romantic painting recalling the occasion in 1582, when the King of Poland received the submission of the Russian
boyars
.
Photo: Royal Castle, Warsaw.
45. THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS. Frans Hals,
Regentessen Dude Mannenhuis (The Regentesses of the Old Men’s Almshouse)
(1664). A portrait of corporate pride showing the lady governors of a Dutch charitable organization. A parallel portrait of
The Regents
bears the same date.
Photo: © Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem.
46. MOSCOW HOLIDAY. A. P. Riabushkin (1861–1904),
A Seventeenth Century Moscow Street on a Holiday
(1895). This lively scene from old Moscow shows a cross-section of Muscovite society, from the haughty black-bearded
boyar
to the blind beg gar, wending their way home from church through the muddy streets.
Photo: SCR Photo Library.
47. SUN KING AS PATERFAMILIAS. J. Nocret (1615–82),
Louis XIV en familie
(c.1680). Louis XIV participated in all the masques and galas of the Court, in this scene putting his entire family into classical dress. Musée de Versailles.
Photo: © RMN.
48. TROUSERLESS PHILOSOPHER. Jean Huber (1721–86),
Le Lever de Voltaire
(c.1770). Voltaire changing from his nightclothes whilst dictating to a secretary: one of a series of intimate scenes from Ferney, painted by Voltaire’s Swiss friend and savant. Musée Carnavalet.
Photo: Giraudon.
49. MASTER OF THE CONTINENT. A. J. Gros, Napotám à Eytou (1808). One of the less sycophantic portrayals of a Napoleonic battle scene, this one at Eylau (Itawa) in East Prussia, 8 February 1807. Louvre.
Photo: © RMN.
50. LORDS OF THE SEA. C. van Wiermigen,
Het ontploffen van het Spaanse admiraalschip (The explosion of the Spanish Admiral’s Flagship, 25 April 1607)
. Dutch naval supremacy, which underpinned the successful Revolt of the Netherlands against Spain, was not seriously challenged until the rise of England’s Royal Navy in the later 17th-century.
Photo: © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
51. INFANTA IN PINK. Diego Velazquez, also attributed to Mazo,
Infanta Margarita
(1664). A child portrayed as a miniature adult. Other versions of the same portrait can be found in Vienna and in Kiev. Prado, Madrid.
Photo: Bridgeman Art Library.
52. READER AND LISTENER. Hubert Gravelot,
Le Lecteur
(c.1740). Marble Hill House.
Photo: English Heritage.
53. MOTHER. J. Rembrandt,
The Artist’s Mother
(1639). Neeltje Willemsdochter van Zuydhoeck painted by her son in the last year of her life.
Photo: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
54. SUMMER. G. Arcimboldo,
Estate
(1573). One of four such pictures ordered by the Emperor Maximilian II as a gift for the Elector of Saxony. In a later series of‘composed heads’ Arcimboldo used the Emperor Rudolph as model. Louvre, Paris.
Photo: © RMN.
55. ROYALIST. P. N. Guerin,
Henri de La Rochejacquelein
(1817). A heroic portrait of the Vendéan leader painted after the Restoration.
Photo: Musée de Cholet
56. REPUBLICAN. A. Cambrón,
La Republique
(1798). A personification of republican France painted one year before Napoleon’s coup d’état and a whole generation before similar images attracted the name of‘Marianne’.